Proclus

Proclus Lycius, known as Proclus the Successor, was a Greek Neoplatonic philosopher active in late antiquity, born in 412 CE and dying in 485 CE. He is remembered for constructing one of the most intricate and complete systems within Neoplatonism. His ideas, transmitted through later scholars and translators, shaped Byzantine, early Islamic, and scholastic thought, as well as German idealism—particularly influencing G. W. F. Hegel, who described Proclus's *Platonic Theology* as the pivotal shift from ancient to modern philosophy and from paganism to Christianity. The main record of his life comes from a eulogy written by his successor, Marinus, titled *Proclus, or On Happiness*, which aimed to show that Proclus achieved the highest virtue and eudaimonia. Additional details appear in Damascius's *Life of Isidore*. According to Marinus, Proclus was born in Constantinople to a high-status Lycian family and raised in Xanthus. He studied rhetoric, philosophy, and mathematics in Alexandria, intending to follow his father into a legal career. After his instructor Leonas took him to Constantinople on business, Proclus practiced law successfully but found he preferred philosophy. He returned to Alexandria, studying Aristotle under Olympiodorus the Elder and mathematics with a teacher named Heron. Dissatisfied with the philosophical instruction there, he moved to Athens in 431 to study at the Neoplatonic Academy, learning from Plutarch of Athens, Syrianus, and Asclepigenia. He succeeded Syrianus as head of the Academy in 437 and was later succeeded by Marinus. Proclus lived in Athens as a vegetarian bachelor, generous to friends, and avoided Christian pressure through a one-year exile. Marinus notes he wrote seven hundred lines daily. Determining Proclus's specific doctrines is difficult because Neoplatonists saw themselves as transmitters of Plato, not innovators. Unlike Plotinus, whose writings survive in bulk, Proclus's originality is hard to isolate. He agreed with Plotinus on the three hypostases—the One, Intellect, and Soul—and wrote a commentary on the *Enneads* (now fragmentary). He sometimes criticized Plotinus, for instance on the prime mover, and unlike Plotinus, he did not consider matter evil. It is unclear how his views differed from his teacher Syrianus, as Proclus never criticizes him in surviving works. A distinctive feature of Proclus's system is the introduction of henads—individual ones—between the transcendent One and intelligible divinity. These henads exist beyond being and head chains of causation (*seirai*), giving each chain its character. He identified henads with Greek gods: for example, a henad of Apollo causes all Apollonian things, and one of Helios causes all sunny things. Each henad participates in every other, so the apparent multiplicity is not true multiplicity; any henad can be seen as the system's center. For Proclus, philosophy liberates the soul from bodily passions, reminds it of its origin in Soul, Intellect, and the One, and prepares it to ascend in this life and avoid reincarnation. Because the soul's attention is distant from its intelligible origin while embodied, he advocated using bodily reminders of spiritual origins, aligning with Iamblichus's theurgy. Theurgy works because the gods' powers (the henads) extend through their causal series down to the material world, and through power-laden words, acts, and objects, the soul can be drawn back upward. Proclus himself practiced many Athenian religions, believing divine power could manifest through diverse approaches. Most of Proclus's surviving works are commentaries on Plato's dialogues—*Alcibiades*, *Cratylus*, *Parmenides*, *Republic*, and *Timaeus*—where he presents his philosophical system as a faithful interpretation.